Marginal nature is found in urban wastelands such as neglected creeks, wastewater treatment ponds, vacant lots, road and rail waysides, brownfields, fencerows, dumps, and alleyways. What emerges in this wastespace is the unintended product of human activity and nature's unflagging expressiveness, which I call Marginal Nature.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

The Natural History of an Urban Wasteland: Hornsby Bend

The Natural History of an Urban Wasteland: Hornsby Bend Urban wastelands in American cities are rarely included in “open space” or “green” maps of the urban landscape. In America, urbanization is portrayed as destroying nature and biodiversity, and urban wastelands are considered degraded and disreputable habitat. In contrast, many European cities actively promote urban wastelands as sites of biodiversity and natural history study, and the EU has policies supporting protection of these “new wilderness” habitats. This talk will explore scientific and cultural attitudes towards the natural (and unnatural) history of urban wastelands, and I will focus on the Hornsby Bend Biosolids Management Plant as a case study. In the 1950s, the City of Austin built the sewage ponds at Hornsby Bend and over the decades expanded the site to 1200-acres that is, also, home to a sewage farm, composting area, and old gravel pits. Rather than reduced biodiversity, Hornsby Bend has become noted for biodiversity, ecological research, and nature tourism. Join us as we explore the scientific and cultural complexity of urban wasteland natural history.Join me today November 20, 2012 Tuesday – NOON to 1pm AT CITY HALL Boards and Commissions Room 1101, Austin, Texas

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About Me

Kevin M. Anderson is a geographer and philosopher who is the coordinator of the AWU - Center for Environmental Research. Kevin has studied at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania [BA], Durham University, England, Ohio University [MA] where he taught philosophy and symbolic logic for several years. He received his Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Texas at Austin with a dissertation entitled: Marginal Nature: Urban Wastelands and the Geography of Nature. His environmental career began on a Pennsylvania farm raising chickens, pigs, and purebred Black Angus cattle, and it has since ranged from running an organic farm in Potomac, Maryland to starting a river conservation foundation in Northeastern Hungary as a Peace Corps Volunteer. He is a co-founder and president of the Texas Riparian Association.